I am an American who is interested in visiting these countries

>>1236968
A lot of Swedes have some German; Finns (whose language is complex and not related to any of its neighbors except Estonian) study Swedish in school but many don't like to speak it (Finns often don't like Swedes); Norwegians have some comprehension of spoken Danish and Swedish, probably more so than vice versa; the Danish phonology is regarded as obscure/unintelligible and comical to many other Scandinavians; Icelanders study Danish in school. Netherlanders can understand Afrikaners and Flemings better than vice versa.

In short, English, as you might expect, is the main lingua franca in the region.

But if you have an ear for language and were to master any of the Scandinavian North Germanic languages, for example, you would probably find it easier to pick up the basics of the others even if you couldn't really use the language you studied on the street very effectively across borders. Pronunciation really varies a lot--enough to render many things incomprehensible--but they share a lot of vocabulary. Even German would probably give you an edge; a German speaking friend of mine always says that Swedish reminds her of German with a really funny accent.

>>1236973
That was really helpful, thank you.

I'm trying to pick the most popular one to start with so I don't get ripped off or worse when I'm alone.

>>1236977
>the most popular one
If you're talking populations, that's obviously German; there are more than three times as many Germans as there are people in all the other countries on your list combined. It's roughly the 9th most spoken native language in the world, followed by Sweden with the 89th. And German fluency ought to make it easier to acquire proficiency in any of the other languages on your map except Finnish.

But you will almost surely be more successful walking down the street trying to speak English to strangers than trying to speak German anywhere on your map.

All that said, pick the language you like most, even if it's one of the little ones. If you have a good head for languages it will offer an interesting foundation atop which to learn the others. If it turns out that languages are hard for you, you'll never get fluent anyway and you will make do in English. Nothing lost.

>>1236999
>But you will almost surely be more successful walking down the street trying to speak English to strangers than trying to speak German anywhere on your map.
Except in Germany, obviously, duh.

>>1236968
every singlee language that is spoken in those countries or just english you fucking faggot.
What the fuck did you think? That everyone of us speaks latin so that you can learn it as well? Fuck off

Depends on how long you'll be the countries for

>>1236968
You should check out this Swedish YouTube guy's Language Challenge series--he gets speakers of various languages to repeat various silly sentences in one another's languages. There's Danish and Swedish, Swedish and Norwegian (surprisingly close), and a bunch of others, including totally unrelated ones (Cantonese, Japanese, Arabic). Worth noting that when the Scandinavians speak to one another they are using English..https://youtu.be/3HA9R6GhY5Q.

>>1236968
You'll have no problem getting around Norway or Sweden with English. In fact, when I do try to speak Norwegian to them, they usually respond in English. It's a Germanic language, but closer to English with sentence structure and ordering of words. Can't vouch for Finland, but in Iceland it was fine.

>>1236968
As a tourist you can get along totally fine in English in all these countries. Learn hello and thank you to be polite and that's it.

>>1236968
If you insist on learning one of those languages, I'd recommend you to study german. A lot of people in the Netherlands and Denmark have pretty remarkable German skills, some Swedes do so as well.
With a broader knowlegde of German you are also able to understand most of the other Languages if they're written down (except for Icelandic and Finnish).

Though it is best to just stick with English as the propability that your opposite can understand you is the highest.

In scandinavian, you can walk inn a bar 0300 and talk to q stranger in english, No matter The age, this you can't do in gearmany, so i would recomend german for practical reasons. If you choose a scandic language, choose swedish, most understandeble by most scandinavian, or icelandic (rated as one of The hardest languages to speak and it's "rear" to meat people Who speaks it) also vikings spooke icelandic

Reykjavik or Copenhagen in summer?

>>1237536
Actually you can't very easily. Scandinavian countries have strict alcohol laws and most bars will not be open at 0300.

>>1236968
German. Everyone else speaks English. If you wanna move here you need to learn a local language though, otherwise you still get lonely

Don't learn Danish. You'll only be able to speak to 5 million people, whom would rather train their English with you, than endure your broken Danish.

It's not pretty or interesting, and it is the worst of the Scandinavian languages for understanding the other ones.

Pick German.

>>1237805
As a Dane, I can only support this. You should generally only learn one of the Scandinavian languages if you're obsessed with them linguistically - not because you want to visit the region and be able to talk and understand people.

If anything, German is by far your best bet.

>>1237536
>Vikings spoke Icelandic
and ancient Romans spoke Italian

I watch a lot of crime dramas and other shows from Sweden, etc.
They're almost always a mishmash of language that they switch in and out of, not even sticking to the production country language.

Like another anon said, you won't get very far trying to learn the local language in Iceland or Finland. It's considered too difficult.

From a traveler's standpoint, you really only need the travel phrases enough to be polite. Please, thank you, may I ask a questions, so you speak English? And so forth.

I think you'll be fine with English. Go ahead and learn all of the etiquette phrases in all the languages to start all transactions politely. But, there's not a single person who will prefer to speak your second language Danish to you over your first language English.

Germany is the exception among these countries. You should learn German if you really do intend to go often. They're not as English friendly by choice.

A useful ranking of countries by the population's general ability to speak English:

http://www.ef.com/epi/

I've never had a problem in Germany getting along as a visitor with English.

>>1237952
>Hong Kong ranks lower than South Korea and certain Eastern European countries
Legitimately surprising

File: ebstr.png (49KB, 1000x1089px) Image search: [Google]

49KB, 1000x1089px

>>1237090
You all speak english so we don't have to, thanks

None. But if you really want to German is the way to go.

>>1238073
Hong Kong was a British colony until relatively recently.

>>1238112
Yeah, that's why it's surprising